


Warrior's Body

by disgruntled_owl



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Fight Scene, Jedi, Nudity, Other, Psychosexual Encounter, Trick or Treat: Trick, cyborg, envy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 19:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16393403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disgruntled_owl/pseuds/disgruntled_owl
Summary: Obi-Wan is compromised during a stealth mission and wakes to find himself wounded, exposed, and in Grievous's clutches. As he tries to make his escape, the Jedi is forced to reckon with the creature within the machine.





	Warrior's Body

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shanlyrical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shanlyrical/gifts).



A claw scraped the length of Obi-Wan’s bicep, jolting him from unconsciousness. It traced his cubital vein, threatening to pierce the tender flesh on the inside of his elbow. Still, he fought the flutter of his eyelids and kept himself in darkness. Should he reveal himself as awake too soon, that claw might slice open his throat. 

He lay on a metal slab. Someone or something had stripped him bare. Cold air striped the skin once shielded by his wrist link and pooled in the gap between his spread thighs. A burning sensation radiated from his hip, up through the cooling, flaking layer of bacta, down into ravaged tissue and electrified nerves. 

The claw retreated from his arm, then landed on his shoulder and glided into the hollow of his collarbone. Obi-Wan held his breath and focused on the pulse of the Force. A chasm surrounded him, but in the distance, he sensed energy looping through a constellation of throbbing knots. A brain, lungs, and a heart. Whatever lurked in this place with him was alive.

A guttural, inimitable cough rattled through layers of alusteel. 

Memories flooded Obi-Wan’s mind. A stealth mission to an arms factory on the Kessel moon Teras. Plumes of smoke visible through the compound's windows, shrouding his shuttle’s wings. A pile of Clone corpses heaped between him and the path to the roof. The crackle of electrostaffs and dead Jedis’ lightsabers in the corridor behind him, accompanied by the dreadful percussion of fiberglass talons. 

Now, a nearby computer emitted a steady stream of chirps. Grievous had left him humiliated, wounded, but breathing. Obi-Wan detected no kyber crystals nearby—the general had abandoned his lightsabers as well as Obi-Wan’s own. There was no telltale chittering of battle droid limbs. Grievous was surrounded by his stealthiest warriors, or he had come alone, and seemingly unarmed. 

The claw lingered a moment longer on Obi-Wan’s clavicle, then meandered along his throat and up to his jaw. Chitin-like fingertips wove through Obi-Wan’s beard and pricked his cheek, though Grievous once again restrained himself from breaking skin. A puff of warm air drifted across Obi-Wan’s face, smelling faintly of singed plastic and dried meat. The fingers moved tentatively, almost delicately, as they explored his face. The pulses of energy between that constellation of organs grew quieter, more rhythmic. Obi-Wan felt his own heartbeat slow and his defenses falter, giving way to bewilderment. 

Grievous pulled away, then pressed his hand to Obi Wan’s chest, clutching his pectoral muscles with a force that brought hot blood to the Jedi’s cheeks. Obi-Wan couldn’t stop himself from stirring. 

“Is it the cold or the tension, I wonder,” the general murmured, tightening his grip. Obi-Wan stifled a gasp, and still did not dare to open his eyes. 

“To know the sweetness of either is far more than you deserve,” Grievous continued, his rasp barely rising above a whisper. He dragged his hand down Obi-Wan’s torso, sinking his fingers into his flesh. Each unspooled a thread of exquisite pain. In spite of himself, Obi-Wan arched his back, as though those threads hoisted him up. Grievous relented and spread his hand over Obi-Wan’s bare belly, which trembled beneath it.

Blood pounded through Obi-Wan's veins and the burn above his hip ached with fresh intensity. More terrible than the anticipation of Grievous's touch was his deepening realization that he had no idea what the general wanted from him. Obi-Wan had fought Grievous many times, and more than once found himself nearly at his mercy, but he had never before doubted he understood the aims of his enemy. The Grievous he had battled was a true war machine, seemingly as programmed for carnage as the droids he commanded. When the general did not spill blood in the moment, it was only in service of some greater devastation. But the Grievous with him now was a creature—bestial and mysterious.

Grievous grabbed Obi-Wan’s hip, grazing the seared tissue above it. Though he wanted nothing more than to scream, Obi-Wan swallowed the pain, driving it down inside himself. Still, Grievous’s fingers twitched—he had noticed the contraction of muscles in Obi-Wan’s throat. “What I wouldn’t give even to know pain again,” the general croaked. “To bear it in a body that is mine. To wear my wounds with honor, to feel the triumph of my own flesh healing over them.” His mechanical hand swept away from the wound, back to Obi-Wan’s belly, and the Jedi nearly melted in relief. “I let them take that from me before I realized what I would lose.”

A veil lifted, exposing to Obi-Wan a new foe: one capable of grief. Envy. Desire. An enemy made of metal bones and fiberglass skin that could still summon carnal passions, rendering him more unpredictable and deadly than any droid. 

“What will you say when I give you the choice they gave me, Kenobi?” Grievous loomed close to Obi-Wan’s ear. “Will you die in your warrior's body? Or will you give yourself over to me?”

With a thrust of his hand, Obi-Wan flung Grievous away from the slab, opening his eyes at the crash of limbs and equipment. The frantic scramble of talons suggested his ruse had worked. The general sprang from a pile of twisted metal and shattered glass on the far side of the room and hurtled toward Obi-Wan, leaping onto the table just as the Jedi rolled off onto the floor. Obi-Wan staggered to his feet and winced at the iciness of the floor tiles. The room bristled with pipes, harnesses, soldering irons, and prefabricated droid limbs, every surface but the slab hostile to his exposed body. In his split-second sweep of the room, Obi-Wan saw no blasters or electrostaffs—no weapons for either of them. 

Grievous lunged at him again, roaring beneath his faceplate. Obi-Wan darted behind a hanging rack of octuptarra legs. Grievous tore through this crude curtain, but before his claws could reach Obi-Wan, the Jedi snatched a leg from the hooks above and swung it at the general’s ribcage. The blow threw Grievous off balance just long enough for Obi-Wan to Force push him into the open jaws of a giant vice. 

As he straightened up, Obi-Wan felt a wave of exhaustion sweep over him. Pain surged from his wound through his abdomen, and he broke out in a cold sweat. He wasn’t going to last long trapped in this cell with Grievous, and repelling him with the Force would only drain more energy. Across the room, a red light blinked on the console beside the door. He would need to override the lock manually to have any hope of escape. For an instant, he craved impervious artificial flesh, a body that would never tire. 

He felt a chilling vacancy behind him. The jaws of the vice were empty. There were no flashes of silver behind the dangling black droid parts, no wheezes or coughs echoing off the towering machines. Ahead, the path to the door was clear. The energetic drumbeat of Grievous's heart, his lungs, his brain reverberated through Obi-Wan's mind, seemingly everywhere at once.

Obi-Wan raced towards the door. Grievous dropped from the ceiling down in front of him, a skeletal portcullis, and slammed him against the wall. As Obi-Wan gasped for air, Grievous split the plates on his arms and spread spider-like over his prey.

“Are you through, Kenobi?” the general growled, pinning Obi-Wan’s wrists to the cold metal behind them. “Feeling tired? Wounded? Weak?” 

“I didn't think Dooku programmed you for such hesitation, General,” Obi-wan snapped, his breathing still ragged. 

Grievous’s black slit pupils shrank. Obi-Wan watched his desiccated red skin twitch behind his mask. The panels of the general’s breastplate rose and fell as he wheezed, but he said nothing. His second set of arms snaked soundlessly forward. One set of claws circled Obi-Wan’s throat, pressing gently against his windpipe. The second set slowly closed over the burn above Obi-Wan's hip, pushing through the crusted bacta and dead tissue to the raw place beneath. Tears sprang to Obi-Wan's eyes—still he gritted his teeth in defiance. 

“Then how do you choose to see it end, Jedi?”

At this, Obi-Wan’s blood ran cold. Something knowing swirled in Grievous’s reptilian eyes. The words Obi-Wan heard in his self-imposed darkness were no soliloquy, and the general now demanded an answer.


End file.
